Growth Times

Image via Wikipedia

To any current or would-be entrepreneur, I highly recommend the following video of a presentation this month by Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint, which was recently sold to Intuit for $170 million.

At first I thought it was a bit long, at 22 minutes, and so I figured I’d only watch the first few minutes. 23 minutes later, I am writing this blog post. Aaron goes over the start-up creation and growth process in practical details, even presenting slides from his own original pitch.

One thing, I’m not a fan of the first advice he gives, about focusing entirely on the product and hiring only engineers when you start, which has some truth to it in a number of situations but can lead to complete trainwrecks in others. Someone on the team needs to tie your development to a market need and a winning revenue model – it may not have to be a business person, and a well-atuned engineer can do that as Aaron shows, but it’s got to be someone with a certain ability to think ”market”. Leaving that detail aside, his advice is a gem.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Aaron Patzer lays bare Mint’s numbers (vator.tv)
• Making a Mint (kevinsgreatadventure.blogspot.com)
• Startups 101: The Complete Mint Presentation (techcrunch.com)
• Mint CEO unveils global expansion plan (vator.tv)
• Intuit to buy Mint for $170 million (vator.tv)
• Intuit to swallow Mint for $170 million (news.cnet.com)

Develop, Fund, Market, Scale Aaron Patzer, entrepreneurship, Fundraising links, growth stages, Mint.com, Start Up